This article did a very poor job of trying to make it's case. It references the fact that FGM, honour killings, and forced marriages are listed in the citizenship guide as being illegal, and says that the fact that the removal of FGM from that list wouldn't matter because it's illegal and "obvious" anyway. So are honour killings and forced marriages, so if it's so "redundant" why just remove FGM?

Next, who says it's obvious? If you come from a country where 99% of women suffer FGM, why would it be obvious that is illegal here? The article says:

The reference to female genital mutilation in the citizenship guide is similarly loaded. Telling potential citizens that cutting off another person’s body parts is illegal and will be punished is … redundant.

So, why is male circumcision legal? It's effects aren't as damaging as those of FGM, but it's still "cutting off another person's body parts" - and it's both legal and widely practiced. So, to those from a culture where it's a virtuous procedure, how is it "obvious" that FGM is any different?

And moreover, the article conflates "being willing to turn a blind eye to" as "being in favour of" to build a straw man about Rempel's position (not that I like her). Rempel is not saying "Canada’s current government is in favour of the forced, ritual removal of a part of a woman’s anatomy", as the article suggests. Rempel is saying they are willing to turn a blind eye in the interest of political expediency. As anyone familiar with social justice ought to know, you don't need to perpetrate a crime to be complicit in it, if you can prevent it but instead turn a blind eye. Rempel may be wrong - seems like she at least jumped the gun on this one - but this article is just a low-rate hit job that can't even string a coherent narrative together for 1000 words.

Most voters already realize the NDP is best going to address Canada's income and wealth inequalities, and as well the climate changes issues for Canada. Singh would do well to focus on job creation, creating decent working class private sector jobs. If Singh doesn't go for the quick fix, gotcha solutions to Canada's coming NAFTA debacle, which could seriously erode Trudeau's popularity, and wisely plays the long game, the NDP could be in for a pleasant surprise on election nite in the 2019 federal election.

Jagmeet Singh picks up Justin Trudeau's playbook in next battle for hearts of Canada's left

Jagmeet Singh is looking to cash in on disenchantment as Justin Trudeau fumbles his lofty pledges

A wooden pathway leads to a scenic lookout on Bell Island in the Bahamas. (CBC)

Dawson's report says the government had found a funding mechanism to allow it to contribute to the Global Centre for Pluralism's endowment fund and Trudeau reaffirmed the government's $15 million commitment during the meeting.

The Aga Khan's pitch for government funding for a $200 million riverfront renewal plan in Ottawa was also discussed.

Dawson ruled that Trudeau should have recused himself from two discussions in May 2016 involving the $15 million grant.

"Two months prior to the May 2016 occasions, Mr. Trudeau's family accepted a gift from the Aga Khan that might reasonably be seen to have been given to influence Mr. Trudeau in the exercise of an official power, duty or function as Prime Minister," she wrote.

Looking out from Bell Island in the Bahamas at night. (CBC)

"For this reason, the discussions with the Privy Council Office and later with the Aga Khan about the outstanding $15 million grant to the endowment fund provided an opportunity to improperly further the private interests of the Global Centre for Pluralism."

While the Aga Khan is not paid to lobby government (one of the criteria under the law) Conacher said he believes the Aga Khan violated the lobbying rules. Otherwise, it would create a giant loophole, he said.

"Every single corporation, business, union, non-profit organization would start using board members to give gifts to politicians if this loophole were opened up by the lobbying commissioner."

Conacher is also calling for outgoing lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd and incoming lobbying commissioner Nancy Bélanger to recuse themselves from ruling on the investigation because of the way Shepherd's contract was renewed and the way Bélanger was chosen in "a secretive, PMO-controlled process."

Manon Dion, spokeswoman for the lobbying commissioner's office, said she cannot reveal whether they are already looking into the issue.

I continue not to understand why the Aga Khan, multi-billionaire private-island-owning self-proclaimed god-emperor of 25 million people, is universally beloved in the media and among politicians. Someone needs to put Kim Jong-un and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in touch with his PR team.

It's primarily pocket book issues that determine how people vote. How's the economy doing, what's the unemployment rate, can people pay for food, clothing, and shelter. All the other issues although important are usually secondary. The economy seems to be rolling along, but if Trump decides to shed NAFTA , it could be a real game cxhanger. What is the NDP's response to that? Does anybody think the NDP would have got elected in BC or Alberta running against jobs? The BC Liberals have been down on their hands and knees praying that the NDP would cancel Site C so they could accuse them of being the party of 'No Jobs'

Enough already about the "Jobs" thing, North. Everyone else here cares just as much about full employment as you do. It's not as though if you didn't keep banging us over the head with the "j word" that the rest of us would be just fine with working people starving to death or something.

The main reason the NDP does not usually do well in elections is because they lose tract of the big picture, and go off on these secondary tangents that don't win elections. These secondary issues usually won't get addressed as well if the NDP does not win. First things first, and the NDP needs to get elected first. We know the Conservatives will be campaigning front and centre around the economy, so what will be the NDP's approach to the economy and in particular what's the NDP's approach if NAFTA collapses?

The negative publicity towards the NDP from the usual Liberal-fed suspects Mileski/CBC, Toronto Star, etc. will help to make Singh an underdog in the next election, so don't get too concerned about the present polls. Having said that the NDP has gained about 5% in the polls since Singh became Leader according Nanos one of Canada's credible pollsters.

Someone needs to put Kim Jong-un and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in touch with his PR team.

I think part of his secret is that he doesn't actually rule over the material lives of anyone. He's more like the Dalai Lama (also beloved) or the Pope (fairly well liked) than a dictator and a terrorist.

Delegates listened to NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s speech at the party’s biannual convention on Saturday and felt inspired in a way they haven’t in a long time. They interrupted the still-new leader frequently with standing ovations. At one point, Singh interrupted himself to reach for a glass of water and some even applauded that.

“You know you’re doing well when they even cheer you drinking water,” he joked.

When he had finished, many commented that it was not only a good speech; it was the best leader’s speech to a convention that they had ever heard.

The speech was positive and cheerful, as Singh always is. He seems incapable of negativity and anger. Before the alt-right hijacked the term, we might have described it as populist.

From the outset, the speech spoke directly to people’s frustrations and discontents. Singh noted that despite the notional economic boom we’re experiencing, people are not feeling it. He talked about Canadians living pay check to pay check, and about their high and unsustainable level of personal debt.

He then pointedly addressed the Donald Trumps and Doug Fords, the right-wing populists, who, Singh said, seize on a widespread sense of economic insecurity to “benefit themselves and their wealthy friends,” by making government and taxes out to be the enemy, not part of the solution.

The case of the Sears employees and pensioners

Unlike Tom Mulcair and even to a great extent Jack Layton, Singh did not go to pains to sound moderate, reasonable and mainstream. He never, for instance, mentioned the great and holy middle class. Instead he referred repeatedly to inequality and the concentration of wealth.

“People,” he said, “must be able to earn a living. Too many jobs are precarious.” As a case in point he cited Sears employees and retirees who “gave their whole life” to the company and ended up watching bondholders get their money and executives get bonuses while they were left out in the cold.

As Singh sees it, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s message to the victims of the Sears bankruptcy is: “Get used to it.” By contrast, the NDP leader’s message to a cheering crowd was: “We’re not getting used to it. We’re going to pass laws against those practices.”

The NDP leader also devoted a fair amount of time pushing back against the Trudeau government’s infrastructure bank, which he characterized as a plan to privatize public goods. Those goods “are ours,” he said, and should never be turned into vehicles for profit.

It was heady stuff and signalled that the NDP plans to put its focus where the Liberals have disappointed many voters who supported them in 2015.

However, when you take a closer look at the programmatic proposals in Singh’s speech you don’t see much that is very radical or innovative.

The NDP pledges to deliver national pharmacare, a long-time commitment, but seems to have decided to downplay, or has totally forgotten about, last time’s signature pledge of a national child care program. Instead, the party now promises, in addition to a prescription drug program, universal dental care. In making that pledge, Singh asked: “Why does our health system cover some parts of the body but not others?”

The party will also deliver electoral reform, a big Liberal broken promise, although, for some strange reason, Singh has boxed himself in by promising not only reform, but, specifically, proportional representation (PR).

No advocates for reform in Canada have ever suggested pure PR. What most want is an element of PR in a hybrid system. It could be a single transferable ballot, which combines PR with Justin Trudeau’s favourite, the ranked ballot. Or it could be a mixed member PR system, with both first-past-the-post MPs and proportionately elected ones, by region or province.

When he makes PR the centrepiece of NDP reform policy Singh shifts the focus away from the urgent need for a more responsive and representative democracy to a singular focus on one potential element of a larger solution.

Will filling in Trudeau’s missing blanks suffice?

By contrast, on other matters such as climate change, the NDP leader seemed almost deliberately non-specific. On global warming he promised only to do better than the Liberals, without telling us what he would do. The word pipeline did not pass his lips.

Similarly, the NDP leader evoked the situation of Indigenous Canadians, anti-Black racism, equal pay for equal work, universal internet connectivity and the need to make the wealthiest pay their fair share without enunciating any specific policy proposals.

The speech represents more of a shift in tone and rhetoric for New Democrats than a lurch leftward in political ideology. Still, at this convention the NDP made a start at carving out its new place on the political landscape.

Seems to me that fake news relies heavily on the logical proposition that if something is not 100% impossible, it's therefore possible. And once it's possible, it's just "one among equals" with every other possible idea.

Is it "possible" that vaccines cause autism?

Is it "possible" that the Sandy Hook killings were manufactured, with actors (who to this stay stay "in character" and remain in their graves)?

Is it "possible" that the humanoid organism we continue to refer to as "Hillary Clinton" is, in fact, a body double?

So many possibilities! How can we be expected to sort through them all?

The Liberals have heard from experts that the popular program in Quebec should be replicated at a federal level along with other changes to parental leave policies, including increasing the value of benefits paid out for parents who opt for an 18-month parental leave and creating a new, six-month leave option with a higher income replacement rate to help low-income families that can't afford a year at only half salary.

Sounds like they're considering the needs of all folks.

Including, potentially, some inexplicable ones:

Quote:

There have also been calls to make such a leave available to anyone who isn't considered a primary caregiver, such as a grandparent.

Huh? Why exactly would a grandparent who is not a primary caregiver need to take a paid leave?

The parental leave program in Quebec is called (in English) the Quebec Parental Insurance Plan (QPIP). A tax is levied on every worker (plus an employer's portion), whether they are capable of having children or not (i.e. sterile like me). It is not much, maybe 0.5% of income.

If the feds did decide to bring in a program like this, will they bring in a tax deduction for it as they did in Quebec? You will hear howling from taxophobic Conservative circles if they did that. There is already considerable grumbling about the Child Tax Benefit which Trudeau already brought in.

I think stealth would have been a better approach. Fund a parental 'insurance' program out of general revenues, and perhaps not cut taxes as quickly as you had planned. If it is a matter of 0.5% of incomes, inflation could probably pay for that in 4 months.

An extra tax deduction is going to make the Canadian right-wingers see red. They will take the benefits, of course, but they do not want to be seen to be paying them.

No need to call Trudeau doofus or whatever it was, as you can just count of the wingers to go to town on him. When you are being ridiculed however, watch out, as it is one of the most effective ways to lose support in politics.

What does it take to not be invited to dinner with Trudeau?

Diplomatically speaking, the Atwal incident was like coming off the ski jump, head down, without a helmet, and meeting the ski lift coming up